Damage Control
by Kaleidoscopic Panda Bear
Summary: Conbat watched, too starved and to be horrified, as Worth withdrew a scalpel and pulled away the bandage at the base of his right wrist, revealing all sorts of scars already there. In a matter of seconds, an alarmingly deep slit was made straight across an already abused vein, and the vampire just snapped.
1. Chapter 1

It was a terrible thing to do, to assume that a person was more than just a person. To assume that a person, who was not a person, but a vampire, would be on the top of the food chain. But, as it was, Conrad was a 'failpire' and 'Doctor' Luce Worth was not 'just a person'. It was only logical to assume that something would become of their relationship then, in light of recent events.

"C'mon, Fagula...Answer yer damn phone!" Worth growled out, drumming his spindly fingers on the splintered surface of his desk. He wasn't even the one trying to reach the neurotic vampire, and he was getting overly irritated with the perpetual ringing that was Conrad ignoring Hanna's call.

The automated voice messaging system picked up once again, and Worth shot up and out of his rickety chair. Lamont winced as the thing bounced off the wall before crashing over sideways, the sound almost covering the groaning of plastic as Hanna snapped his phone shut, ending the call without leaving a voice mail.

"Wha' th' hell is his problem?" Worth took the lit cigarette out of his mouth, crushing it in frustration as he stepped around the desk and the pitifully dead plant, and into the center of the dingy room near Hanna. The redhead offered the illegitimate doctor a wide smile, before looking pointedly in Lamont's direction and cheerfully stating, "I don't know, but we're going to go find out!"

The Franco-Italian shook his head, already twirling his car keys around on his finger. This was how they all ended up piled into the backseat of Lamont's car, Hanna in the middle of Worth and the zombie, as packages took up the front passenger seat. Hanna was bouncing in his seat excitedly until Lamont hit train tracks and sent the ginger flying; the rest of the ride over to the Artsy side of town and to Conrad's flat found the man held down by Worth's hand on his shoulder and the Zombie's arm around his waist.

"You guys are no fun," Hanna had pouted, childishly, "Haven't you ever sat in the back of the bus before?" Worth snorted. "We're no' on a _bus_, Hanna," he growled out. That silenced the normally chatty ginger. When the group finally pulled up to Conrad's apartment block, Worth was out of the car and skipping steps before Lamont even had the vehicle to a full stop.

Later, Hanna would daresay that the Aussie was _worried_ about the vampire. Worth would knock him over the head and reply with a surely snarky (but muttered) comment. Once Lamont had the car in park, he twisted around in his seat and looked expectantly at Hanna and the undead man.

Before either of them could ask what he wanted, the delivery boy said, "Well, I'm staying here with the car, and someone has to go make sure they don't kill each other." Lamont watched as the Zombie went to go unlock his door to get out, but Hanna stopped him. "Prometheus, you should probably stay here. I'll go make sure everything's okay." 'Prometheus' nodded his head silently and relaxed back into the seat, Hanna crawling over his lap and tumbling out of the car in a mess of limbs.

Once he popped back up, he booked it towards the steps and disappeared into the complex. "He means well," the soft murmur came from the back seat, so Lamont glanced that way and immediately turned to sit right in the driver's seat. The orange glow from the Zombie's eyes reflected in the rear view mirror. "So..." Lamont whistled out lowly.


	2. Chapter 2

Luce was a man of many trades. Luckily, lock picking was one of them. He had the door open within a few seconds' time, placing the safety pin and other broken metal bits into a pocket of his tacky, fur lined coat. Worth kicked the door open the rest of the way, stepping inside and calling out, "Honey, 'm home!" When no protesting followed his distinct, goading accent, Worth stepped further into the apartment.

"Hey, ya 'ere, Connie?" Finally, a muffled noise came from somewhere deeper in the apartment. Worth paced easily own the hallway, pushing doors open as he passed. Finally, the second to last door that the Aussie popped open revealed what he was looking for. The blonde stepped into an almost sickeningly clean bedroom, glancing around for Conrad. He didn't see the neurotic vampire at first.

Only when Worth, with a dispassionate look on his face, sent a figurine off the top of the dresser tumbling down with a flick of his fingers did he notice the occupant of the apartment huddled in the corner. Conrad jumped at the slight crash of the statue hitting the floor, his hands gripping the back of his neck and hair. His knuckles were white from gripping his skin so hard and he let out another undefinable noise.

"Ya 'lright there, Connie?" Worth came and crouched in front of the vampire, taking an unlit cigarette out of one of his pockets and tucking it behind his ear for later. Conrad looked up at him and for once, Luce Worth didn't know what to say. After a few skipped beats, Worth sighed and scratched at the side of his face absently.

"Oh, Peaches," he sighed again, watching as Conrad flinched back at his voice. "Ya really fucked it it up this time, huh?" For some reason, the vampire actually nodded his head at the comment, agreeing. Conrad's eyes were bloodshot, completely red, both fangs poking out slightly. Worth reached his hand out to pull the other up, but Conrad shifted away from the touch. "C'mon, Puppy. Gotta getcha back so ya c'n git some blood in ya."

Mentally denying the fact that he was actually concerned, Worth wondered how long the vampire had been huddled in the corner, starving. "I - I can't, the sun- I'll lose control." Conrad folded further into himself, making himself smaller and giving Worth an idea. "Turn inta yer lil' batty mode," he muttered, starting to shrug out of his coat. "Yeh, that'll work. Go batty an' I'll wrap ya up in m' coat ta hide ya. C'mon," he waited (im)patiently as Conrad shot him an odd look, glancing down in disdain at the rather dingy thing that was supposed to hide him.

"Alright," he finally mumbled, and with a small puff of colored smoke, a fluffy maroon bat sat in Conrad's place. "Upsa - daisy," Worth muttered, tossing the coat over the animal and wrapping the material up so that Conbat's head was just barely poking out of where the fur was. He stood with the bundle and curled his bandaged arms around it protectively, feeling Conbat shift around in the coat.

Walking back out and down the hallway, the Aussie nearly jumped in surprise when he saw Hanna standing in the livingroom of the apartment. "Heya, Doc. Where's Conrad?" The ginger tried peeking around Worth, but the taller male simply shoved back on his shoulder to guide him towards the door. "I got 'im right 'ere," he lifted the bundle in his arms a bit, eliciting a small squeak out of the bat. "Oh! Nice thinking there, Doc. Are we taking him back to your place?"

Worth snorted and began the trek back down the steps and back to Lamont's car. "Yeh. Where th' fuck else would we be goin'?" Hanna shrugged his shoulders at that; the question _had_ been pretty stupid. The trio remained quiet, save for Hanna humming another Queen song as he juggled the tasks of searching through his pockets and keeping the bundle in his lap situated.

Finally, he found his lighter in one of his jeans pockets and lit the cigarette that had been tucked behind his ear previously. Rolling the window down and letting the rush of nicotine engulf him, Worth allowed himself to block out Lamont's and Hanna's light bantering, the corpse's side comments, the radio, and everything else. He was just about to shuffle around for another cigarette when a tiny half-hand poked out of the collar of fur and waved frantically to catch the blonde's attention.

Worth flicked his cigarette out of the window and drew his knees up, his ridiculously long legs creating a sort of shadowy area so he could uncover Conbat and figure out what he needed. "Wot?" He muttered. It came out harsher than he meant it to, and Conbat immediately flinched back. "W-Worth. I don't think I'm going to- I'm going to snap before we get back." Looking at the unusually slanted eyes and longer fangs and claws, Worth decided to trust Conbat's self-analysis.

"Fuckin'...Well, th' only way yer gonna git any blood is fr'm me. 'T'is yer only option, Peaches. Whatdaya say?" A twisted smirk made its wat across Worth's face as the maroon bat shuddered in disgust at the thought. "F-Fine. But I'm not...I don't want to bite you." The Aussie let out a sharp laugh and began to pat down the coat pockets. "Di'n't expect ya to, Connie. A fresh wound c'n easily be 'ranged."


	3. Chapter 3

Conbat watched, too starved to be horrified, as Worth withdrew a scalpel and pulled away the bandage at the base of his right wrist, revealing all sorts of scars already there. In a matter of seconds, an alarmingly deep slit was made straight across an already abused vein, and then Conbat just snapped.

He was lapping and suckling at the blood flow as the appendage was shoved under the coat with him, and eventually, the little bat ended up nestled in the palm of Worth's hand, his now-normally sized claws latched onto the arm to keep the right angle. Only when the careful shifting of Worth's hand around him, did Conbat come back to himself.

The blood flow was thinning slowly and the bat growled in frustration, clawing at the slit and aggravating it into bleeding a bit more. A rough chuckle came from above him. "Easy there, Fido. There's only so much left in me," and then car doors were slamming shut, and Worth was walking down the alley, jingling his keys and whistling, stumbling as if he were drunk. Conbat felt a little terrible for the man. Only a little.

The door to Worth's hole in the wall creaked open, and a sarcastic, "Home, sweet home," tumbled out of the Aussie's lips. Conbat nearly shrieked when the coat he had been huddled under was whisked away, leaving him cowering in Worth's hand under the single, florescent light bulb. The man was leering down at him with a slight frown stretching one side of his mouth down. "Yer good now? No' gonna rip any'n 'part if ya turn human 'gain?"

Conbat mutely shook his head, then thought better of his answer as Worth dropped him down onto the rough surface of his desk. "Right. I'm'na go sleep a bit then, yeh? Disturb at yer own safety." And that was that. Worth disappeared through the back room and into his private quarters, a few mutters and curses flowing out like his native language. Lamont, Hanna and the Zombie were all silent, Lamont finally turning to look at the maroon bat on Worth's desk.

Conbat immediately shifted back into his human form, hopping off the desk and averting his gaze. "Well, Conrad, you must've taken quite a bit out of him. He almost never willingly goes to sleep," Lamont nonchalantly flicked the tip of Conrad's nose, the vampire immediately jumping away with a snarl.

"Not my fault the man never takes care of himself," it came out in a harsh, defensive growl, as he made his way to the corner of the office and into one of the cupboards. It was true; he had taken quite a bit of blood from Worth, but Conrad knew he was still dangerously close to snapping. Pulling out a blood bag, Conrad stepped away from the cupboard and back around behind Worth's desk. A protective barrier of some sort.

Lamont was laughing quietly at him now. He chose to ignore it in favor of sinking his fangs down into the plastic, relishing the flow of blood. Until Lamont threw a pen at him. Honestly, the Franco-Italian was getting on his last nerve. Snapping with rarely shown, inhuman speed, Conrad tossed the half empty blood packet down onto the table, vaulting over the desk even as the delivery man was saying, "Haven't you had enough?"

Before anyone could really quite register it, Conrad had Lamont pinned to the floor. His skin was crawling, as if something was struggling to escape, his fingers like talons and crushingly tight on the other's shoulders. A shudder ripped its way up Conrad's spine and over the sound of his own gnashing, pointed teeth, the (slipping) vampire could hear every single heartbeat thumping against Lamont's rib cage He could kill him. The terror is the Franco-Italian's eyes almost made him want to.

But, leave it to Hanna to manage to break up a potentially dangerous and fatal situation. "Conrad, you're disturbingly ugly as a demon. Put your humanity back on." The ginger gave him a toothy grin when Conrad finally managed to break his glare aimed at Lamont, and with a last, tiny shudder, the vampire shoved off of the package handler and got himself under control.

He heard Lamont's stuttered "Thank you," aimed towards Hanna as he snatched the blood bag off the desk and stomped away into the back room, determined to get away from the idiots in the office. Nobody followed him back through the twisted hallway of Worth's personal quarters, and for that, the graphic artist was thankful. He didn't quite know where he was going, either, until he was standing in the threshold of the bedroom, watching the faint rise and fall rhythm of Worth's skeletal chest.

He sighed, an internal battle going on within his own head. Finally giving up, Conrad tiptoed his way into Worth's bedroom and dropped down to sit beside the mattress on the floor. He watched silently as the man's eyes fluttered behind his closed lids, breath even and slow, mouth slightly open. The man looked more relaxed in that moment then Conrad had ever seen him before.

The illusion was shattered though, when Worth swallowed once and spoke. " 'M no' really 'sleep, ya'kno'." The Aussie never even cracked an eye open. Conrad jumped slightly, looking down at his hands in his lap sheepishly. Neither male said anything for a while, so Worth spoke up again. "Why ya back 'ere, Peaches?"

"I - I'm sorry. Trespassing and everything. I can leave, if you want me to." Worth scowled, still not opening his eyes. "Di'n't ask fer ya ta leave. Asked why ya were back 'ere." Conrad shrugged, even though he knew the other couldn't see the movement. The vampire took an unneeded breath in, steadying himself.

"I just...wanted to get away from the idiots out there." Worth's scowl turned into a smirk as the man moved his hands up and under his pillow. "I c'n understand tha'." The two fell silent again, Worth seemingly slipping into sleep and Conrad fiddling with the now empty blood packet in his hands. Without really meaning to say it out loud, Conrad mumbled one last thing.

"Thanks, Worth."

A delayed chuckle. "Damage control, Fagula. S'wot I do best."


End file.
